mdpepper

It has some flaws, but one pretty fair way to rate players would be to require those who wish to be rated to play in one of the 18-board daily games per week (or at minimum 2 per month). Everybody would have the "same" partner, with the downside being that it would limit the effect of bidding skill in the rating. I would love this system, also, because I fear that when face-to-face bridge "fully" returns, we might lose the 18-board game due to low participation. I'd actually like that game to be 24 boards because it's the best way to practice playing matchpoints as far as maintaining concentration and discipline for a full session. Having said that I strongly appeal BBO to offer 24-board games daily in the week or 2 before the 3 annual Robot National tournaments. The "practices" don't cut it as far as the mental-concentration aspect. With 3 consecutive days of playing 24-board robot games, you can simulate the endurance aspect of playing in the tournament.

Individual tournaments need standardized CCs; the only logical way to do this is to make GIB the standard. For players not wishing to be that "sophisticated," the same "mouse" the bid method used in Robot games can reveal the meanings of both made calls and calls being considered. I really want to play in individual tournaments but would find it to be absolutely unpleasant to do so in online games. I've played in very enjoyable individual regional tournaments where you have a few moments at the start of each round to discuss what you're playing with your partner for that round. Trying such a discussion online is just not tenable; people are impatient and/or less tractable to being reasonable.

I'm sure that most people playing in the Individuals play with some regularity in Robot events where GIB standard is the rule, so why not make it the standard/only bidding card allowed. Saves a lot of time and I bet it would make human-individual events a lot more popular. In fact, I'd really like to see there be a National Individual event added to the Robot Individual offering thrice annually. I have a lot of ideas about how to make such an event almost cheat-proof and if somebody from BBO notices this post and is interested, I'd be happy to outline how I'd conduct the event.

I sometimes find it difficult to track the cards played to a trick because they're "thrown" into the middle, rubber-bridge style. Seems it would be easy to have the card each player contributes to a trick shown in front of that player, as it's done when playing at an actual table. I looked for a an option to do that, but found none, so I hope BBO will seriously consider doing this. I see no downside other than what I'd think would be a minimal-coding enhancement.